


Hoping For a Better Future

by Patmos



Category: Magnum Bullets - Night Runner ft. Dan Avidan (Music Video)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Sci-Fi, The rest of the wolf pack - Freeform, Worldbuilding, fan wolf mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22976932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patmos/pseuds/Patmos
Summary: Some worldbuilding and proposed backstory for some futuristic furries. Based on the music video Magnum Bullets by Night Runner, featuring the voice of Dan Avidan and animated beautifully by Knight of the Light Table.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 26





	Hoping For a Better Future

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the names for the backgrounds are canon (Tri, Square, Circle, Star, Rhombus, Traps, Heartbreaker) and the rest are ones I picked based on supposition or pure creativity. I have a screengrab here to show the majority of the pack: https://i.imgur.com/mw4dEHz.png

In a society where you can change everything about your appearance, the most audacious way to live is as your authentic self, heedless of trends and politics. When changing your face is as easy as a single afternoon’s upgrade, it becomes tempting to change your intentions and manners, and what the truth means to you. An existence filled with caprice cannot last, because if you are not sincere and genuine, it becomes difficult to keep what’s truly important in your sights, and humanity is lost inside you.

Humanity. An odd relic word. No longer are we strictly human, but I like to think we still strive to hold to the qualities that humans held dear: Kindness, compassion, benevolence, and truth.

I suppose I need to start at the beginning.

These days, people are made, not born. Everyone starts off in a tube as some formless mammalian cells, not rightly defined as human, or really anything else. They design us from orders. If you’re lucky, a parent or parents have put in an order for a child, and you get to grow up with love and caring of a magnitude that outstrips anything I’ve ever experienced. If you’re not lucky, well, you’re grown in batches and sent to training centers, destined for the service jobs that can’t be left to machines.

I would be the latter. I grew up at the Corilas Training Center in a batch of twenty wolves, and our destiny was security. Corilas was a prominent business then, their irons in fires world-round. Our building was a satellite branch, mostly involved with medical advances, and I suppose that saved us. We turned out state-of-the-art. Or we should have been. Turns out that no matter how hard you try, you can’t have a capable warrior without free will.

Maybe if we had gotten to the age to go to work they would have considered us failures, but we didn’t get there. With only a few years until we came of age, Corilas made some big mistake. There was a scandal, a bankruptcy, and our building got shut down. They didn’t even try to recoup losses; we were turned out on the street, still in the basic gowns that we’d grown up in, clutching whatever we could salvage from our dorm.

We didn’t even really have names. Just codes that identified us to our caretakers.

The others turned to me, ears back with more than just wanting to keep the rain out of them. I opened my hand and looked down at the single business card that Caretaker Bethany had been able to slip me. The address was for a homeless shelter within walking distance, and there was a little map chip on the back that projected a hologram.

We worked together to shield it with stolen blankets so that the rain wouldn’t foul the image, and we walked. Passing cars kicked up water on our legs. Unpleasant smells stung my sensitive nose that had only ever known the faint and sterile dorm. The colorful lights seared eyes that were used to soft lamps. No one offered us help, but some growled or threatened. Traps, Rhombus, and Hex, the biggest of us, often growled back, and that was enough.

The shelter didn’t have room for all of us, but we were unwilling to be separated. They let us get better clothes from the donation boxes, though. When the shock had worn off, we realized we were capable of survival. Hadn’t they been training us to defend? We were strong and tough.

It was a steep learning curve, and one I wasn’t entirely sure was worth it, after the fact. We lost Elli and Tearful in those first few days. We almost lost Traps --- well, we lost some of him. I don’t know what we would have done without Star and Penta. They’d had assassin training, a matched pair, meant to provide for someone important who no longer mattered. They provided for us now, but they still looked to me to lead, and Square was my right hand.

Circle found us the Den. They always were ridiculously lucky. Crescent and Crosswise made it up really nice. Kite found an underground doctor to teach her first aid and such. Heartbreaker kept the machines going, and Wait found a job at a secondhand store, lending legitimacy to us all, bless her.

We found weapons and clothes that suited us. We found lovers among us, and grew comfortable. We were complacent.

We crossed the wrong person, some moose asshole with more money than breaths.

And Octa got taken down in the crossfire.

Some of the others got scared. Arrow took Trefoil, Dash, and Key off, away from cities. A fresh start. I wished them well, saw them off at the train, handing them enough money to get themselves set up comfortably in the countryside, though it wasn’t much in the city. I never heard from them again, except for a single postcard with their four symbols and a single word: Safe.

I sometimes wonder why we didn’t go too. Maybe it’s that we never would have fit in. You have to want to make that life work, and we liked the city, the excitement and adventure, even through the losses. We have dreams. Someday we’re gonna have enough to live the high life. We just need the right stroke of luck.

Maybe we can make our own luck; Circle’s been learning poker.


End file.
